Man arrested in deadly attacks on homeless in San Diego is released

A man suspected of killing three transients and leaving a fourth for dead was released Monday because authorities said they did not have enough evidence to keep him in custody.

Detectives over the weekend had gathered and reviewed witness statements and sifted through physical evidence from four violent crime scenes. When the analysis was done, officials with the police and district attorney’s office felt releasing Anthony Padgett was the appropriate decision, San Diego homicide Capt. David Nisleit said.

“As I stated last Thursday when Padgett was arrested, we still had a lot of work to do,” Nisleit said. “As we continued Friday through Sunday ... we discovered exculpatory evidence which does not give me confidence moving forward with Padgett still in custody.”

He would not say what specific information that was. However, Nisleit stopped short of saying the department had the wrong man behind bars.

“In an hour or tomorrow, we could get new evidence that might point the finger back to Padgett or someone new,” he said.

The captain defended the decision to arrest Padgett, 36, saying that he closely resembled the suspect seen in surveillance video and photographs. Investigators also were aware that Padgett had been convicted of setting a homeless man on fire in 2010.

“I could not risk not taking [Padgett] into custody and leaving him out in the community, God forbid he murders another person,” Nisleit said. “This was done with the utmost priority of keeping the public safe, and I believe it was the right decision then, and I believe it was the right decision now.”

When Padgett was taken from police headquarters to jail last week, he had declared his innocence to nearby reporters.

“I look like that person, I’m innocent,” he said in a clip posted by a 10News reporter.

Gretchen von Helms, a criminal defense attorney in San Diego County, said it was unusual to have a defendant arrested and then released before the initial court hearing had taken place.

“Typically [police] have a sufficient quantity of evidence when they go out and arrest someone,” Von Helms said. “You don’t want to arrest people that you’re not going to have a good chance to convict later.”

Monday’s development was disheartening to homeless advocacy organizations, whose members had expressed relief after the arrest was made.

“I thought I put this one on the shelf, and now I’m back out there,” said Bob McElroy, president of the Alpha Project. “Here we go. We’re going to do the same thing. We’re going to have our outreach people telling the same thing — keep your eyes open until they definitively catch” the person who is doing this, he said.

Alvin Nelson, who has been homeless for several years, said the arrest hadn’t made him feel any safer, and the release didn’t make him feel any more vulnerable.

“It’s a matter of going on high alert,” he said.

Nelson has lived on Park Boulevard across from the downtown Central Library for about two months. The area is occupied by about three dozen people. Many of the men in the group have been sleeping on the periphery of the encampment while the women stayed on the inside in an effort to boost security.

Alexis Leftridge, who also stays across from the library, said a number of her companions didn’t feel safer even after the arrest because many believed there were two assailants.

“I wasn’t going to let my guard down,” she said.

The series of violent assaults began about 8 a.m. July 3, with the death of Angelo De Nardo, 53, who was killed and then set on fire under the Clairemont Drive freeway bridge off Interstate 5 near Morena Boulevard.

About 4:50 a.m. July 4, Manuel Nunez Mason, 61, was critically injured on Greenwood Street in the Midway District. Less than two hours later, Shawn Mitchell Longley, 41, was found dead of injuries on Bacon Street in Ocean Beach.

Then, about 5 a.m. Wednesday, witnesses heard loud noises and saw one man set another on fire along a walkway between condominium complexes between State Street and Kettner Boulevard, south of Broadway in downtown San Diego. Investigators said a towel was ignited on top of the critically injured man, identified as 23-year-old Dionicio Derek Vahidy, but a witness grabbed it away before the victim was burned.

Vahidy died of his injuries Sunday.

According to court documents, Padgett was convicted in 2010 of mayhem and assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury for igniting a fire that burned 20% to 25% of Sydney Moreno’s body. Witnesses said Padgett watched the victim burn, making no attempt to help him.

Padgett — who, like Moreno, was homeless at the time — argued in a letter to the court that while he had set the fire, he never intended to burn his friend. Moreno also believed Padgett wouldn’t intentionally hurt him, according to court documents.

lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com

Winkley writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Union-Tribune reporters Dana Littlefield, Joshua Emerson Smith and Joshua Stewart contributed to this story.

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UPDATES:

6:38 p.m.: This article has been updated with more information about the investivation.

3:46 p.m.: This article has been updated with more information from an afternoon news conference.

3:13 p.m.: This article has been updated with more information on the homeless attacks and response from a homeless advocacy group.

This article was originally published at 1:25 p.m.